Star Wars: Episodio I - La minaccia fantasma

Well, after waiting 16 years for his next installment, George has given us "The Phantom Menace". As a Star Wars fan I got what I expected - another chance to immerse myself in the Star Wars universe - a film whose sole purpose is essentially escapism. But as a movie fan, and judging it as I would any other movie, I frankly feel mildly disappointed. Any movie that's made can always be improved upon but I feel that this SHOULD have been better. Firstly the good points :

1) The visuals are stunning - a lot of love and hard work has quite obviously gone into the effects and the people involved can quite rightly be proud of their work

2) All the performances by the main cast were good. Particularly Natalie Portman and Pernilla August.

3) The Pod Race was exciting and amusing.

4) The final sabre duel was quite fantastic : Darth Maul prowling up and down like a caged tiger was a particularly excellent touch - it added real tension and anticipation to the scene.

5) The music as always was magnificent. The Star Wars saga would lose much of its charm and intensity without Williams' scores.

And now the negatives :

1) The pacing was too fast in parts! The first half hour of the film just left me cold - you weren't led into the story. You were dumped straight into the action. On paper I'm sure the first half hour looked fantastic but I found myself sitting in the theatre going - 'hey, great special effect shot there!' I wasn't involved in the story and the scenes lacked tension and danger.

2) The film only truly started for me on reaching Tatooine. I finally got a chance to get to know the characters. However there still was not enough character development in the film as a whole. For example, Obi Wan had nothing to do or say throughout the movie except flash his light sabre around from time-to-time. Who is Obi Wan??? After seeing the film I'm none the wiser. And the final sabre duel (good as it was) would have been infinitely better had the relationship between Qui-Gon and Obi Wan been explored past the mere mentor-apprentice motif. The final sabre duel lacked emotional involvement as a consequence.

3) Why did they make Jar-Jar so incomprehensible?? I found myself becoming annoyed at having to strain to understand his nonsensical utterings! (Having said that, he wasn't as annoying as I'd been led to expect) Why George used easily identifiable racial accents for his alien characters completely puzzled me. It just shows a lack of imagination!

4) Not enough Darth Maul.

5) What's with the biological exposition on the Force! Was that necessary? The first three films pointed to links between the Force and genetics but I don't need tiresome cold scientific explanations as to the Force's origin, thank you very much! It just ruins the mystique.

6) Can we have less of the mindless gaffes that occur in the final battle scenes (You know the ones that save the day!) Its an insult to the audience's intelligence (In a full theatre I swear I didn't see a single soul who looked under sixteen! - has George forgotten about the original fans). In the original trilogy there was none of this cringeful embarrassing material (Ewoks excepted!!)

Well I think I'll stop there. To summarise : a good movie that could have been a whole lot better. Perhaps there was too much story to cover in two hours? In which case the plot should have been shortened on the adage that "less is more". I've always thought that episode one was always going to be the lamest of the new films so I await the next installment with anticipation and hope .....

Let's get it out of the way here. Jar Jar Binks is really annoying and outside of "there's always a bigger fish" I don't find even a single one of his scenes funny. Outside of that, he contributes practically nothing of value to the story (he tells Qui-Gon how to find the Gungans but that's it.) Almost any criticism levied against Jar Jar is one with which I agree. (Yes, I know he was a character created to appeal to kids.)

Midichlorians were an entirely unnecessary introduction though they're not as frustrating as Positive Probability Ions.

But the rest of the movie, I like. Palpatine, the Sith, Darth Maul, the Jedi Counci, Qui-Gon, even the child characters. (The Rule of Two is pointless and arbitrary but I can accept it.

Does this movie have flaws? Yes not more glaring flaws than those of its predecessors. Is this the best Star Wars movie ever? No but it's still pretty good.

With all the voices and opinions and critical ravings about The Phantom Menace, I am sure that one more voice weighing in ain't gonna make that much of a ripple. But I am a committed fan (in the sense of being devoted, not insane), and I feel the need at least to declare publicly my admiration for Lucas' latest work, and also a few of my concerns.

Overall, Episode One ranks above Episode Six, about par with Episode Four, but certainly nowhere near the grandeur and wit of Episode Five. Phantom Menace reminds me of something someone said of Citizen Kane: A hollow masterpiece. PM is technically brilliant, yet it is so technically brilliant that it lacks a certain "human" warmth. To me, the best moments were those intimate, interpersonal moments--Padme giving Anakin a blanket, Qui-Gon placing his hands on Anakin's shoulders in the Jedi temple, and ESPECIALLY all those moments with Shmi Skywalker, Anakin's mother.

In an interview in Premiere Magazine, Liam Neeson gave a telling anecdote that illustrates my point. First, he noted that Lucas was reticent to give the actors any motivation for lines, expressions, or anything. In other words, Lucas simply expected the actors to say lines devoid of emotional content, as if the post-production could somehow invest emotional motivation. Neeson revealed that it took him a long time to convince Lucas to allow Qui-Gon to place a hand on Shmi's shoulder after he convinces her to allow him to take Anakin away to Coruscant. That hand on the shoulder was probably the BEST moment in that film, a sign of human connection in a swirling clash of galactic politics gone awry.

Traces of post-production fiddling is evidenced most forcefully with Jake Lloyd's Anakin. Watch carefully his scenes at the dinner table, sitting with Qui-Gon at night, and saying goodbye to his mother. Those scenes were clearly doctored in post-production; I believe Lucas took different takes of Lloyd saying lines and splicing those with Pernilla August's. Pay special attention to Anakin after Shmi says, "He can help you, he was meant to help you." Anakin's face is clearly digitally manipulated to turn sideways. The first time I noticed it (it was the fourth time I've seen the film) I was taken aback. It was so blatant I began to wonder what other bits were modified that way.

On the plus side: Lucas can weave a wonderfully rich narrative tapestry. I love that all this begins with a trade dispute. A trade dispute! Complete with procedural wranglings in a galactic senate rife with corruption and bureaucracy (watch for the cameo appearance of Spielberg's ETs) and a sinister Darth Sidious pulling the political strings. It's the perfect smokescreen to disguise the rise of an evil empire. Every step of the plot has the look of careful craftsmanship; every twist and turn of the plot had relevance.

The costumes are outstanding, especially Queen Amidala's Asian-influenced wardrobe. John Williams has certainly outdone himself with the soundtrack, particularly "Duel of the Fates," which introduces choral voices into the Star Wars musical repertoire, ominous voices that sometimes hiss and sometimes howl the forboding Sanskrit text. The production design and cinematography (both real and CGI) create vistas of unparalleled beauty and richness: from the Italianate arches and domes on Naboo, to the art nouveau-inspired underwater air-globes of the Gungans, to the dramatic cityscapes of Coruscant. I can see Academy Awards next year for all these achievements . . .

Despite its many drawbacks, I am drawn continually to rewatch The Phantom Menace: for its artistry, for its lines ("There's always a bigger fish"), for those rare human moments, and to soak in this latest addition to the Star Wars text. Yes, the wrapper might be a tad bit flashier than the present inside, but its a gift given with a lot of heart and the best of intentions.

Lucas may have problems as a director and writer, but I've always thought that those flaws are balanced by his great storytelling ability. The problem with "The Phantom Menace" is that he simply has no story to tell. The film merely adds an introductory chapter to a story that has already been told, and stretches it out into a two-hour movie. It is no accident that prequels of this kind are rare. They are very difficult to make properly. And apparently he's just not a sophisticated enough filmmaker to pull it off.

For one thing, this project is limited by the fact that anyone familiar with the first trilogy knows the story's outcome, and it therefore lacks some of the suspense associated with a gradually unfolding saga. More importantly, however, this situation leaves Lucas with very little freedom as a storyteller. It also encourages him to gloss over key events; because their outcome is a foregone conclusion, he forgets to bring them to life.

For example, we know there will eventually be a romance between Anakin and Padme. So Lucas has the two characters meet here and--surprise, surprise--they seem to like each other. Their developing friendship isn't portrayed that clearly, and their motivations for becoming close aren't explained. Because Lucas fails to make scenes like these believable, we can't help being conscious of how he's manipulating the plot in his effort to connect the two trilogies. Another good example of this problem is Anakin's portrayal as a potential Jedi. There doesn't appear to be anything about this kid remotely out of the ordinary, even though the other characters keep talking like there is. Our only reason for thinking he's special is that the plot requires it.

If the story fails to be engaging, it is because we never see the important events. Lucas makes a fatal error in not showing what's happening on Naboo, the small planet whose capture is the focus of the plot. Numerous atrocities are supposedly being committed against the planet's inhabitants, but we only know about this because the characters on screen refer to the events, usually rather woodenly.

The deadpan performances are a problem in themselves, but they only highlight our lack of involvement in the story. Think of Han Solo sweating in fear, then think of the emotional vacuums passing for characters in this film. Whenever any of the characters do express emotion, as in the scene where Anakin and his mom part, it still seems awfully restrained. Somehow, Lucas manages to keep the emotional reactions of his characters to a minimum, which gives the film an almost mechanical feel.

It's true that "A New Hope" never showed Alderaan's inhabitants, but we still could feel the tragedy of the planet's destruction through the horrified reactions of Princess Leia and Obi Wan. Moreover, there were many other involving events which we witnessed directly, such as the slaying of rebels at the beginning; the capture and torture of the princess; and the murder of Luke's foster parents. Furthermore, the major plot elements were intriguing in and of themselves. They weren't there merely to show us how they were to be linked to later events, which seems to be the case with the new film.

I suspect that Lucas was not as concerned in the first trilogy with what had to happen later in the story and was therefore able to focus his attention on the events at hand. The weakest segment was "Return of the Jedi," which had the task of bringing the story to an end. Only then did Lucas start to show signs of forcing plot points. In "The Phantom Menace," he gets so bogged down in the task of bringing his story from point A to point B that he ends up with only the bare bones of a plot, and none of it comes alive.

This is especially true of the characterization. In the old trilogy, characters like Yoda and Han reveal distinct personalities in their first few minutes on screen. This film goes for more than two hours and the characters, including the familiar ones, come off vague and nondescript. We aren't given much of a chance to experience their personalities in the way they interact. We must take Qui Gon's word for it when he describes Obi Wan as "headstrong." What's most odd is that the cartoons seem better developed than the humans. The scenes where Qui Gon negotiates with the birdlike slave-owner Watto are amusing and well-done--probably the movie's best scenes aside from the stunning action sequences--but they can't hold a candle to the constant interactions throughout the first trilogy.

One thing I cannot do is accuse the film of lacking creativity. The design of the creatures, the technologies, and the planets is impressive. Watching the film is sort of like reading a children's book that isn't very good but abounds with beautiful illustrations. There is certainly a "wow" factor in the movie's visuals, but the effect of it is short-lived.

I get irked when I hear fans talk as though the "Star Wars" movies were never about anything beyond special effects. While the inventive visuals are part of what made the originals so revolutionary, they're not what made the films so fun to watch. And in no way can they explain the trilogy's continuing popularity today. After all, many of the original effects look primitive by today's standards, and their novelty has certainly worn off. Only an enduring and compelling storyline could have allowed the first three films to become the classics they're almost universally acknowledged to be.

Positives:

• Planets design
• Some of the action scenes
• Darth Maul
• Musical score

Negatives:

• Story
• Pacing
• Characters
• Acting
• Writing
• Dull cinematography